The FAYZ II
by Lidea Stranger
Summary: 'As has been long theorised, these phenomena demonstrate that in some way we are yet to understand, the laws that define our universe have been altered. What's troubling, of course, is that if it can happen once, it can happen again.' The books were our only warning. This is the way the world ends. This is the FAYZ, II.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey!**

**I'm not dead, after all!**

**Aaaand no one remembers me. :/. Well, hey anyway.**

**This story is *not* actually a re-write of the Hawick FAYZ. Same setting, completely fictional characters, proper English. In LIGHT, (amazeballs by the way. If you haven't read it yet, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!) there is a snippet of a radio interview in which a big-wig scientist talks about the possibility of another FAYZ happening [description] and this story takes that premise and (hopefully, if I finish it) explores the idea that the FAYZ really did happen, but there was a big government hush-hush conspiracy. In order to prevent another 'event,' they set up a series of experiments around the world to investigate the causes. One of which goes seriously wrong (or very right, it depends on you perspective) and badda-bing, badda-boom: we have the FAYZ II.**

**The books were commissioned as a warning/survival guide disguised at teen fiction.**

**This probably will contain LIGHT spoilers. Just a wee warning to you.**

**DISCLAIMER: All rights to the GONE books, the characters, plot yadda yadda belong to Michael Grant.**

**Shall we get on with it?**

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE**

**ONE **MINUTE THE teacher was talking about the Treaty of Versailles. And the next minute she was gone.

There.

Gone.

No 'poof.' No flash of light. No explosion.

September Hay blinked as if she was awaking from a dream. This had happened before, never in real life, and not for a very long time.

"Seppy, you saw that, right?" Asked her friend Caroline, who by chance, also shared September's surname; however the girls were not related. Caroline was a pretty blonde girl with an honest, open face, whereas September was all dark hair and dark eyes which kept secrets.

"I think I did," the first girl replied. Other kids in the class were glancing around perplexed and nervously giggled.

"Miss Bloom poofed," Rebecca Glass stated from behind the Hays. Rebecca was an annoying airhead of African descent. She said it like an inside joke, like she was waiting for a select few to burst out laughing. Seppy knew what the joke was, but she was surprised just to learn that Rebecca could read, and even more so that this was actually happening.

"We saw," Caroline warned. Caroline had always joked that Rebecca would be the first to go, simply because she was so hated.

A Smartphone whizzed across the room and broke into three pieces upon impact with the interactive board. Jem Adamson swore and the whole class turned to stare at him.

"What? The Internet wasn't working again," he said.

"Mine neither. Must be the network," Phil Kerr suggested.

"You're on that crappy one. I'm not," Jem countered.

September and Caroline caught each other's eyes and automatically checked their mobiles. September had four bars and 3G signal. She tried to open Facebook but a red banner at the top of the application warned her that she had no Internet connection. She tried calling her dad but it didn't ring.

Caroline's face confirmed her fears.

Rebecca stood up and waltzed to the front of the classroom where she stuck her head out of the door, then turned around almost immediately. "Weren't the two Ali's here today? And the twins, too."

"Brooke was sitting right next to me!" A girl called Aa'isha added. September could never remember her second name; they never spoke anyway.

"I saw Charlie outside and he vanished!"

"Is anybody else's phones not ringing?"

"I tried to send a text but I don't think it went through."

Rebecca rushed to the teacher's desk where there was a computer.

"It's the apocalypse!"

The last comment was from a random kid in the year below who'd been put in isolation at the back of the classroom after being removed from his own history class. September raised an eyebrow.

"Now that was uncalled for, just because you can't get on Facebook for a bit," she called at him.

He looked at her without really seeing her in reply. Obnoxious little git.

"Internet is definitely down," Rebecca announced.

There was shouting coming from the room next door. September rose from her seat and headed out of the classroom to find out what the cause of all the fuss was.

"Where are you going?" The girl at the computer demanded.

"There's no teachers about, and next door is having a riot, so I'm going to try to sort it out."

"Yeah," she scoffed, "try."

Seppy ignored her and ventured out into the hallway where the screaming third years were impossible to tune out. There were a few kids in the hallway, struggling to decide what to do with themselves. Their faces were filled with fear.

"What happened?" September asked the closest boy, Jem's younger brother Blake.

"George electrocuted Emily," he whispered, close to tears.

"What?"

"The teacher disappeared, right, and then, and then George like, pushed Emily because she, she was asleep like, and then she started screaming and going all..." the boy made a few jerky movements in imitation.

"Is she okay?" pressed September as she placed an arm on his shoulder. She was aware now that she had an audience of kids from her class who'd also come to see what the commotion was.

Blake shrugged her off and ran to Jem.

Caroline began running a list off out loud. "Adults: gone, Internet: gone, phones: down, and now kids with super powers..."

Rebecca swallowed in an exaggerated fashion.

"It just can't happen. It's impossible."

"Improbable," Seppy interrupted, "but not impossible. We've entered a FAYZ."

Phil barked a laugh. "Okay, could somebody _please_ explain to me what the hell is going on? Phase? Super powers? Now would be a _great _time to wake up!"

The three girls rushed to explain.

"FAYZ, F-A-Y-Z, stands for Fallout Alley Youth Zone-" Caroline began.

"Basically there were these books set in California," Seppy interrupted.

"Pretty much everything that happened in the book is happening right now," Rebecca put simply.

"Pretty much everything?" Jem didn't miss a thing.

"There's a wall, a barrier, a radius of ten miles, ten miles at the tallest point. It's a sphere; a great big ball to trap us in. However, we don't know how far away from the barrier we are because we don't know where the centre point is. For all we know, the science department could be split in half." Caroline managed to win the war to explain the FAYZ.

There was a large group of kids who'd gathered up.

September took her cue. "We don't know how long we could be trapped. In the books, I think it was a year. Here, things are going to happen a lot differently. We could be here eight months, or eighteen months."

The teenagers stood silently as the reality of their situation sank in.

"We need to learn from the mistakes those kids made in the books," Caroline pointed out. "We need to take an inventory of food supplies, get the younger kids seen to, organise a system in case of an emergency, have I missed anything?"

Seppy shook her head. A small part of her mind noticed the amount of control Rebecca and Caroline seemed to have. It was as if they'd been _planning_ for this.

"Seppy, you like kids," Caroline said.

"Seriously?" September snapped.

"I'm not having this argument! It makes sense, okay? Phil, your dad's a butcher, right? Would you be able to go through town and work through all the food? Jem, you could help either of them."

Phil looked at his friend. "I can get Tamsin to help."

"What about you?" September asked Caroline at the same time.

"I'm going with Rebecca," replied Caroline with an acid tone.

Jem shrugged in response to Phil. "I guess I'll go with September." September gave him a weak smile of gratitude to hide that underneath; she was scared of what would happen if she told anyone her secret.

* * *

"So, what are we doing now?" Rebecca asked Caroline as they headed out of the school and into the staff car park.

"Well, first we're going to take a hopefully non-too-literal crash course in driving, and then we're going to investigate and perform a rescue mission as and when we need to," the blonde informed.

Rebecca kicked at a small stone and watched it roll onto the road. They were surrounded by the wail of car alarms; cars had driven off the street and into other cars and buildings when their drivers had poofed. She saw a toddler strapped in his seat in the back of a red Volvo and realised what Caroline meant when she talked about rescue missions.

"There's no way we'll save everybody," Rebecca whispered. "There're kids locked in houses in the town, kids and babies stuck out in the middle of the countryside in cars, in houses, anything could happen in the time it would take to find them."

"You really know how to look on the bright side, don't you?" Caroline observed. "Look, Jem and Seppy are looking out for the kiddies and neither of them are stupid, so they'll work something out. They should spread word. The important this is helping the kids with no brothers or sisters or cousins or family friends who can't survive on their own."

"I know how much you love those books, every time I log onto Twitter you've got some GONE-related hashtag or another, but not everyone will have even _heard_ of them, so you really can't expect people to have the capability to have their priorities straight when all the adults are gone and there are people with mutant powers."

Caroline stopped walking beside a grey Ford and peered through the window in the driver's seat. The engine was still running but the car had stopped. "Tank's full, c'mon." She opened the door and slid gracefully behind the wheel. Rebecca ran around the front of the car and got into the passenger seat, threw her bag into the foot well and buckled up.

"Yeah, good point," Caroline said and undid her own seat belt so she could fasten in around her.

"If I die because you crashed this car, I'll haunt you forever," said Rebecca.

"Shut up and let me concentrate."

Rebecca watched the street for any idiots who may run out in front of them. Most seemed to be preoccupied. Fortunately there were hardly any cars on the road so Caroline would be able to drive more or less in a straight line to wherever it was they were heading.

The car jolted forward and Rebecca caught her collarbone on the seatbelt.

Caroline winced, "Sorry."

She started the car again and kept their speed well under ten miles an hour. Rebecca closed her eyes when Caroline knocked another car. Their progress was slow and jumpy at first, but eventually Caroline gathered confidence in what she was doing and the two girls drove down the A7.

"Rebecca, do me a favour and see if there are any maps in here," Caroline said after ten minutes.

Rebecca, glad for the distraction from the other girl's driving, searched the glove compartment and found only music tapes from the 90s, a torch with no batteries and an address book missing a cover and Z. "Glad to know the adults were thinking about us before they poofed." She began flipping through the address book.

"What are you doing?"

"Finding out who we'll have to send a written apology to once we've totalled their car."

"No map?"

"Hang on," murmured Rebecca and reached behind her seat for the pocket.

"Now what?"

"My papa keeps his maps behind the passenger seat, found something!" She grabbed onto what felt like a book and pulled it out. "Oh."

Caroline didn't reply, but Rebecca sensed that she was waiting for her to spell it out.

"The Guinness Book of World Records 2009 and a very battered copy of a Simpsons' comic."

"Damn it."

Rebecca checked behind the driver's seat and something sharp snagged her finger, then brought it up and rested it on her lap. There was a small scratch on her finger from the spiral binding but she was unconcerned as she flipped through pages until she found what she recognised as a road map of their town. She searched in her bag for a compass, calculator, ruler and scrap paper.

She looked at the scale and tapped the ruler against the map while she decided which formula she would need, then did the calculation on the paper.

"You can do maths?" Caroline seemed shocked.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes. "I'm in the top set. Focus on the road." Once she'd measured up ten miles to scale on her compass, she set her work down. "Do you want to try and go a bit faster? At this rate it'll be an hour before we see it."

Caroline picked up their speed to thirty-five miles an hour, then dropped down to twenty. "It's just... Weird, y'know?"

Rebecca saw all the cars lining either side of the road as they drove through the country side. "We should turn all the engines off; we might need the fuel later."

The blonde ignored her. "You know the nearest nuclear power plant is fifty miles away, right?"

"I do now," Rebecca sighed. The two continued to drive south, weaving through wreckages.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

"**WHAT** DID THE orthodontist say, then? Jack?" Jack's mum asked him as they drove down the A7. The radio was on, Radio 1 was playing dubstep.

Jack Reid shrugged. "Not much, just to keep wearing my retainer every night."

"You didn't piss him off again, though, did you?"

"What do you mean?" He asked innocently, despite knowing exactly what she was talking about. As he'd left his last appointment, Jack had had a go at the orthodontist for removing his braces before his teeth were straight and accused him of not doing his job properly. He wasn't even that bothered about his teeth; he'd just been looking at ways to annoy people and found that adults hated being told that they were incompetent. In fact, when he got back to school, he was going to yell at his French teacher again.

"You know what. Well, did you?"

"Nah, just stared him down when I left."

Jack waited for a lecture that didn't come. The radio turned to static. He turned to his right, where his mum would have been sitting.

She was gone.

The car slowed and began to veer off the road. Jack reached up to grab the steering wheel and managed to stay on the road. He looked up to see a large Morrison's lorry that was about to crash straight into him and swerved into a fence when the car stopped. Sheep ran, startled. There was a large bang that came from behind him, further down the road.

Jack sat back in his seat and laughed. He'd done it! He'd just avoided a major crash!

The laughter died when he remembered an important detail. There had been nobody in the cab when it had almost crashed head-on with Jack. He unfastened his seatbelt, shut off the engine and with it the static on the radio, and climbed out of the Ford Fiesta.

Looking back at the road, he could see that all the cars had left the road and had stopped in the ditches and in the fields. The Morrison's lorry laid overturned, half-in half-out of a ditch. That must've been the bang, Jack decided.

He could hear the engines running, but more pressing was a chorus of screams on the side of the road heading north. He stumbled onto the road and up to a car that had crashed into a tree, where there were at least two children and a dog. Jack pressed his hands against his skull and spun around on the spot, waiting for people to rush to the scene.

It was only him, the kids and the dog. He squinted to see that all the cars were empty, as if their drivers had vanished and the cars had driven off the road.

He grabbed his mobile and dialled 999. It didn't ring.

Jack stared at his phone. It was brand new, and he could _see_ the mobile mast poking out over the hill.

He tried his dad's mobile. Nothing.

Jem. Ditto.

He cried and dropped to the tarmac, which was unseasonably warm for October. He didn't cry for long, maybe a minute or so. When he was done he looked up and saw petrol running onto the road from the crashed car. Jack was no expert, but it couldn't be good.

An alien sensation of calm and control took over Jack, suppressing the fear that made his legs shake as he got back to his feet and walked to the car. He pulled open the passenger door. A girl, about seven, her brother, maybe four, and a baby were strapped into the backseat. The older kids stopped crying when they saw him.

"Mummy and daddy vanished," she girl told him. "Where did they go?"

Jack faced the ground, "I don't know. Could you undo your seatbelt?"

She nodded and complied. He took a deep breath and unbuckled the little boy and the baby then stepped out of the way so they could climb out while he found a stick.

"Rory!" The little boy cried and pointed at the boot of the car. Jack assumed he meant the dog.

"I'll get him, don't you worry," Jack told him. He found a small log and used it to knock out what was left of the driver's side window where he picked up the key and opened the boot of the car. He ran to let the dog, a collie, out and grabbed his lead. Rory jumped down to the ground and raced up to the kids, pulling Jack along.

On the road, Jack handed the dog to the girl, then realised they'd left the baby in the car. He turned back and grabbed the car seat. It was the fastest he'd run in a long while.

"Who are you?" The boy asked. His sister elbowed him. "What's your name?" She asked.

"Jack," he panted. "You?"

"I'm Lucy, this is Thomas, and that's Emma," Lucy introduced her family.

"Where do you live?" He asked, wondering why Lucy wasn't at school.

"Brighouse," Lucy said. "It's half-term where we live."

"What are you doing up here?"

"We're staying with Aunt Roxy, she lives in Hawick."

"Me too, maybe we can find her there," Jack suggested. He knew he looked dodgy offering to help stranger's kids, but it was decidedly better than allowing them to wander on the road by themselves. There were plenty of cars still running; he should be able to drive them all back to town. "Come with me."

The five of them walked down the road and found a car that had slowed to a stop at the side of the road. Jack took the keys and opened the boot for Rory and helped the children get in the car, making sure that they were buckled in as securely as they could be without car seats. He didn't want to go back to the wreckage as he was worried that it would blow up on him. With a shaky start, Jack got the car going, driving straight on back to town.

As they drove south past empty cars on the side of the road, he glanced up at the rear view mirror and saw black tendrils of smoke rising from the rough direction of the wreckage. Jack was forced to admit that, deep down, he was scared of what he might not find when he got home.

* * *

"Jem, come up here," Seppy called from the top of the Moat Hill.

She heard Jem sigh and run up the steep set of stairs. He was panting when he got to the top. September tutted, _I thought I was unfit._

"What?" He asked. He was obviously unhappy that Phil had rejected his offer to join him in his food mission, and made September feel like their mission was an inconvenience to him.

"Look at the Eildons," she told him.

He squinted into the distance. "I don't see them," he said.

"Exactly," September said. The Eildons were three hills in the Melrose area, miles away from Hawick, but nearly always visible in the right conditions. The weather was, for once, fairly decent, but the hills had just vanished from the horizon, like somebody had taken a giant rubber and erased them from the skyline.

"So?"

"So the North-East part of the barrier will obviously run between here and there."

"How could I have been so dense? Of _course_ the barrier is between here and there! What does it even look like, anyway?"

"Well, in the first four books, it's a pearly-grey colour then in the fifth book it goes black before turning clear at the very end. The last book hasn't been released yet but I assume it will still be transparent."

"Stop using big words, it doesn't suit you."

Seppy stared at him, "Pardon?"

"I'm guessing that you're trying to compete with Caroline and Rebecca, but you don't have to use words like 'assume' and 'transparent' to prove yourself or anything."

"What do you know?" September snapped.

"I have three older sisters. I know all about teenage girl psychology."

September headed back down the stairs and wondered what to make of that last part. "Where first, do you think?"

"The school's would be a good idea, but they've probably all scattered by now, so we'll just have to think of places to go."

"Do you mind if we stop at my house? There won't be anybody to let my dog out, and she's still not very good at holding on."

"Whatever, how far away is it?" Jem was at the bottom of the stairs with her now, his extremely tall self made September feel small and slightly vulnerable.

"I can see it right now," she said. "We live on Ramsay Road."

"Same," Jem replied. "How come I've never seen you about?"

"Because I hardly ever go out," September admitted. She waited for him to ask why, but he didn't, for which she was glad. The last thing she wanted when the world had gone to crap was a pity party from a boy she barely spoke to.

The two walked past the small football field where the local primary school held their annual Sports Day and through the gate that led to a cul-de-sac.

"You know how Caroline was talking about super powers?" Jem asked.

"Yeah..."

"Are these like, genuine super powers?"

"As opposed to what, Gypsy fortune-tellers?" Seppy retorted. "Well, some of the powers where pretty cool, like super speed, laser hands, telekinesis. Others were pretty random. There was a girl with a super good singing voice, and another with the power of a metaphor."

"A metaphor? Would that be like if I said 'It's raining cats and dogs' and it actually started to rain cats and dogs?"

"Not quite," September chuckled.

"Do you have a power?"

September glanced at a couple of kids playing on a swing set in their garden. "Wow, so forward."

"You haven't answered the question," Jem pointed out.

"Look, in the books, there started to be a lot of hate directed the kids with powers, the mutants. 'Kill the moofs.' One kid was almost hanged and ended up with permanent brain damage."

Neither of them said anything until they reached September's house. She opened the door and Lily, a blonde and black German shepherd puppy, jumped up at her and tried to lick her face. September stepped back outside and tried to lead her into the garden, but Jem was proving too much of a distraction. She scrabbled at the waistband of his school trousers, hopped to the ground, grabbed a squeaky ball and tried to get his attention again.

"Aren't you lovely," Jem cooed as Lily's tail went an hundred miles an hour.

"Lily! Lily, come here. Come here. Come on. Come on, Lily. LILY!"

The pup ignored her. Seppy went up to her and took hold of her collar and guided her to the garden so she could do her business. Lily sniffed at the grass but went back to Jem.

"Aw, how old is she?" Jem asked as he petted her.

"Eight months," she answered. "You'd better go inside. Help yourself to a drink in the kitchen, by the way. Lily, come _on!_"

Lily strode back to Seppy when Jem headed off into the house. "You," Seppy fussed when her dog walked past to use the garden. When she was finished, she bounced back and the two of them went inside.

Jem was in the tiny kitchen and had evidently put the kettle on to boil. Two mugs were set out on the counter next to the sink. "I didn't know what you wanted," Jem said to her.

"I'll have whatever you're having. I'm just going to get changed, so if you want to make yourself comfortable, you can."

She walked down the hall by herself- Lily stayed in the kitchen thinking Jem would give her food- and closed the door to her room behind her. She thought it would be weird without her dad around, but she was more than used to being home alone.

She gathered up her dirty washing that had collected on the floor and dumped it in her laundry basket, wondering when she would get around to washing it all. She found a decent pair of jeans and loose top and changed quickly. She dumped her school uniform with the rest of her dirty clothes. She picked up her mobile and considered switching it off and throwing it in a drawer, but held onto it instead. She had some games and music on it. And who knew? Maybe Hawick had its very own Computer Jack-type who actually would set up some kind of mobile network.

Once dressed, she picked up a small bag and filled it with things she might need over the next few days. She didn't believe she would be staying at home that night, or the night after that. Make-up, dry shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush, retainer, clean underwear, a copy GONE for reference, a couple of pads and her Moon cup just in case. She considered taking money, but doubted anyone would care if she paid for anything or not.

She spotted the DVDs in the corner of the room. They were arranged on the shelves in order of age rating and genre however three DVDS from the broken top shelf appeared to be suspended in mid air, inches from the split in the wood. She tried not to dwell on how that had happened.

When she had everything she thought she might need, she went back to the kitchen where Jem had left a mug for her. She sipped the hot beverage tentatively and almost laughed when she realised it was just hot chocolate. She carried her drink into the living room where she found Jem's legs poking out from behind the TV set. The TV was on, showing only static. Lily was playing with a plush gorilla by the fireplace.

"Do we have a picture yet?"

"No."

The screen flickered to a bluey-grey.

"What about now?"

"'LOADING DISK.'" She read out. "The TV won't work. It has to get signal from somewhere, but it won't get through the barrier."

Jem crawled back out into the open space of the front room and muttered: "I haven't even seen this barrier and I already hate it."


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

"**OH** DEAR GOD, no!" Rebecca cried when she looked in one of the cars. Caroline ignored her and spotted an orange carrier bag on the boot of a car a couple of meters from her.

The two girls had grown hungry and had stopped somewhere between Newmill and Teviothead- two small villages on the A7- to search cars for food. Caroline had attended Teviothead primary school for two years, after which it was closed because it only had six other pupils. All six went to school in town instead.

She retrieved the keys from the engine and opened the trunk. There were Sainsbury's shopping bags with various goods ranging from a bikini to frozen pizza. Caroline picked up the pizza- meat feast- and read the cooking instructions.

"I don't suppose you're a Sam or a Hunter, Rebecca?" She joked, waving her trophy, "because I'm starving."

"Look here," Rebecca told her. She groaned and approached the girl with the dark hair. Her heart sank to her feet. She could hear the wailing of a small child as she got closer.

A baby, maybe not even a month old, was in the back, screaming. Rebecca opened the door and lifted him out. She gagged and held him at arm's length.

Caroline raced back to the shopping bags where she was sure she'd seen a pack of nappies. She found them, tore the plastic packaging apart, and brought Rebecca a nappy.

"Why do I have to change him?" Rebecca asked when she ran back to the car.

"I saw some formula milk in here somewhere," she said. She found the tub, a bottle of water and a feeding bottle. She wasn't sure that the baby should be drinking it, but they had no other option at that moment. Caroline read the instructions and made the milk. With a quick look at Rebecca who had her back turned, she put both hands against the bottle and concentrated. The bottle warmed up in her hands until it started to feel hot without burning her. She dabbed milk against her wrist until she was certain it was the right temperature and brought it back to Rebecca.

Rebecca had finished changing the boy, and the dirty nappy lay at the side of the road. She was sitting in the front passenger seat bouncing the baby. Caroline passed her the bottle.

"How did you warm it up?" She asked as she fed the baby.

"There was a hot plate kind of thing," Caroline lied. As soon as she'd said it, she wondered why she'd lied. She wasn't ashamed of her power. In fact, it was quite a useful power. Rebecca would hardly set up another Human Crew, either. The other girl didn't appear concerned.

"We really ought to go back into town. It'll be dark soon and who knows what will happen?" Rebecca said.

"I'll shove some stuff in the car," Caroline said and began carrying shopping bags to the car she'd borrowed. When she was finished she picked up the baby's carrier seat and set it up in the Focus. Rebecca came over and put the baby in the seat. The two girls sat down in the front and Caroline started to slowly drive back to town.

"We should give him a name," Rebecca said.

"You mean you didn't look for any documents?"

"There weren't any. Don't you think he looks like a Connor?"

"If we give him a name we'll get attached," warned Caroline.

"Yeah, I think he's a Connor. Hey, Connor!"

Caroline gritted her teeth and slowed the car when she saw the sign reading "Hawick: Home of Cashmere." It was only half past four in the afternoon, but already the sun wasn't as strong. In another fortnight, it would start getting dark earlier in the evening.

"So I've been thinking, right, that maybe I do have a power. You know that two months ago I couldn't tell you the biggest square factor of √200, it's 2√100 by the way-"

"Just when I thought I could escape sixth period maths," Caroline muttered.

"-Then suddenly I just... Got it. Everything was just so _easy_ after that," Rebecca continued. "I've been practising with past papers at home. Takes me a while to work out what the question is, but I always get it right."

"You've done probability, right? Tell me, if I drove into that wall there, what are the chances that you would be the only one I'd kill?"

Rebecca didn't answer.

Caroline made a noise in the back of her throat, "Well?"

"Depending on the speed and the angle you hit it... It's not very likely at the moment 'cause you're going too slow."

"Just a friendly heads up, people generally don't like know-it-alls."

* * *

Phil Kerr would be the first to admit that he _really_ could care less about the task Caroline had given him and Tamsin. Everyone else was panicking with all the adults gone and no apparent way to get help, but the three girls seemed to have complete control. Or, at least they thought they did.

Phil was a skinny, slightly geeky kid. He didn't really do any sports but followed the Six Nations every year. He was smart, but not brainy like Jem or Caroline. He was okay looking, not nearly as bad as he'd been back in May, before he'd started his acne treatment. His mum had bought some Bio-Oil to help fade the scars but he'd refused to use it on the grounds of he was spotty, not pregnant. Then his sister had a baby so it didn't go to waste after all.

He and Tamsin were going to his sister's flat on the rough council estate on the other side of town to find his nephew, Aiden. They hoped they would find some adults on the way and Caroline & Co would be proven wrong.

Just as the two boys went right at the fork in the road just past the fire station, Phil spotted what looked like a moving car coming around the bend at the top of the A7.

Tamsin, whose real name was actually Corey Thomson, prodded Phil's arm with his index finger and pointed at it.

"I saw," Phil said, looking into the distance. "Do you think it could be adults?"

"I dunno; wouldn't there be more than just the one car?"

The car was black but too far away for Phil to tell what make and model. It was driving slowly, as if the driver was inexperienced. Phil grabbed his friend's arm. "C'mon."

Phil and Tamsin raced across the road and up the hill to meet the car. Phil thought, _there are way too many hills in Hawick_, as he ran. The car slowed then pulled into the side of the road between two silver cars. The engines seemed to have switched off automatically, like older cars seemed to do after waiting too long for the lights to go green.

The driver's door opened and somebody stepped out. Someone just tall enough to be a grown-up.

"It is an adult!" Phil screamed. He faltered when the driver stopped still and stared at him.

"Phil, what the actual hell?" Jack Reid frowned.

"We thought you were an adult," Tamsin said.

"Where've you been?" Asked Phil.

"Gala, orthodontist. I've just driven six miles into town and not passed a single car." The blond boy looked around. "Where are all the adults?"

"Well, they were here, and then they weren't. Rebecca says they poofed," explained Phil.

"Rebecca Glass? She's a poof," Jack snorted. "So, there's no adults at all?"

"No adults, no older kids, no Internet, no TV unless there's something wrong with the signal at Sainsbury's," Tamsin listed things off.

"Oh, that'll be why 999 didn't work," he muttered.

Phil noticed movement in the car. "Who's in there?"

"Where?" Jack asked. "The car?"

"Yeah."

"Just some kids I picked up. Their car was totalled. It was all burning up last time I saw it."

"Jack Reid, the Hero," Tamsin said. "Maybe if you learn to shut your mouth half the time you will get to join the army."

"Stuff you, ginger," Jack snapped with narrowed eyes. "I'd best be off, anyway. They were staying with their aunt, so now I'm going to have to find someone to look after them."

"Caroline told September and Jem to look after the kiddies," Phil shrugged.

"Great, where are they?"

"Don't know. Try asking around at the school if there's anyone still there," Tamsin suggested.

"Well, I'll text- see you around," Jack said before he went back to his car and drove away.

"Do you smell smoke?" Phil asked Tamsin.

Tamsin's brow furrowed. The two of them spun around and saw a house burning on the edge of the estate. Fire licked at the window frames; smoke billowed up into air. There was no wind to carry it away. Kids stood on the other side of the road and stared. Not one person looked as though they were going to step up and take control of the situation.

"Holy..." Tamsin ran his hands through his hair.

A sudden rage possessed Phil. "This is the adults' job! Why aren't they here? Why isn't anyone doing anything? Someone could be in there-"

Tamsin had grabbed his arm in his strong fist. "Listen, retard! We're right across from the fire station. We go, we get a fire engine working, we put the fire out. We'd be heroes, man!" There was a manic light behind his grey eyes.

Adrenaline sent Phil's heart racing. He was scared, oh he was definitely scared. Scared of the fire. Scared of the unknown. The only thing stopping him from running straight home and hiding under the covers with his Nintendo and a bar of Galaxy was knowing that if the two of them didn't step up; nobody would.

The boys ran across the road without looking- there were no moving vehicles- where they jumped a fence and sprinted across the grass to the garage. The smoke smell could still reach them. The only conclusion Phil could draw was that the fire was getting stronger.

Phil saw a bunch of kids ranging in age from eleven to thirteen, judging by the blue ties they wore. They were walking by the police station, going towards Stirches. With as much authority as he could muster, he bellowed, "You lot! Help us get a fire engine!"

They stopped and stared at him like he was speaking Mandarin.

"Today!" He yelled. They jumped to action.

Tamsin had already found his way in. The group followed him in, Phil hot on their tail. They walked through the building hurriedly, and got to the garage where there were three red engines. Tamsin was working out how to get the garage door to open. Phil opened the door of the cab and climbed into the passenger seat. He had no idea how to drive, but Tamsin did. Sort of. The blue ties clambered into the seats behind him.

The garage door lifted up and Tamsin sprinted to take a seat behind the wheel. With some fumbling, he managed to get the engine going and then started driving the short distance to the burning house. Tamsin pulled up sharply before barrelling out with Phil and the other kids

They stumbled in fear maybe four meters away from the front door when something hard slammed into the side of Phil's head. He was vaguely aware of his crumpled body hitting the pavement and through his darkened vision he saw Tamsin try to punch thug Michal.

And then Phil fell unconscious.


	4. Chapter 4

**Loving how many views I'm getting by the way! :)**

**However, more reviews would be well appreciated as I really want to know what you all think, as well as any areas you think I could improve on.**

**Because I have something like eight exams for three different subjects next week, it will probably take longer to update as I won't be able to finish the next chapter (realistically) before next Saturday. Also, this chapter turned into a real bitch to write.**

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

"**WHERE **ARE WE going?" A little boy with thick curly hair demanded. Seppy had already managed to forget his name. Caroline had a lot of misplaced faith in her.

"It's just a quick stop, don't worry," Seppy told him. There was a small crowd gathered now. September walked with Jem, Lily, her neighbours' kids and a bunch of their friends. The littlies had the common sense to group together and join the group. They were headed first to Jem's house, and then somewhere where the little kids would be safe, but neither of the teenagers knew where that would be.

Two little girls raced across the road to join the ever-growing parade.

"Where's my mummy?" One asked.

September wished that she had a way to explain to the kids how all the adults had been zapped away leaving everybody under the age of fifteen trapped in sphere where some of the kids had developed super powers and who knew what dangers they would have to face? Surely there would be no boys with whip-like arms, nor bodies composed of wet gravel. Carnivorous worms and talking coyotes? There were no coyotes in Britain, unless there were some in Edinburgh Zoo that had escaped and somehow migrated south without being caught. Unlikely. It was also unlikely that worms would mutate in the same way as the worms of Perdido Beach had.

"Where is she?" The girl persisted. Seppy realised that her mind had begun to wander. Jem caught her eye. His brow was raised; expecting.

"She had to leave for a while. She'll be back soon, I'm sure. Do you have an older brother or sister?"

She nodded. "He's in P5."

Seppy doubted that a nine-year-old would be able to be responsible for anyone. She could tell her to find him, but if she couldn't, where would she go then? Who would look after her?

She walked up to Jem and spoke in a low voice. "Jem, we need to arrange a meeting point for all these kids."

"Meeting point? September, I'm more worried about where there're all going to sleep tonight. It's not as if we can let them go home and look after themselves. We can't even split them up and let them board in our houses."

"A hotel?"

He shook his head. "Biggest one is Mansfield and that's way out on the other side of town. Somewhere central."

She bit her lip, deep in thought. Back when she was a first year, she had a friend, Sarah. She and Sarah had drifted apart and she was sure that Sarah's birthday was in May, so she wouldn't be around anyway, but that wasn't the point. Sarah's mum worked in the school office. September had heard that the school kept emergency supplies in case it got flooded or whatever. It made sense to Seppy. There was food, shelter, more than enough to do in the art department or library and even if there weren't any sleeping bags, it wouldn't be that hard to send someone to a shop and get some.

"The school. Everyone knows where it is, so we could tell all the kids to go there and to bring clothes and sleeping bags or whatever."

Jem considered it. He did a thing with his head where he turned it to a certain angle and stared at nothing in particular when he thought. Seppy supposed it was kind of cute.

But now was definitely not the time to be crushing on boys.

"Okay, makes sense. Listen up!"

The kids all turned to look at them.

"We don't know where your parents are, but we can be pretty sure that they're safe. In the meantime, we've all got to be really brave," September began. "We have to look after each other, so that means sticking together."

"I want you all to get in pairs and go to your homes to get a change of clothes and a blanket and a sleeping bag if you have them, then go down to the high school."

"If you're locked out and can't get in, you're still to go to the school," Seppy added when she remembered that a lot of people would have been at work when the FAYZ happened.

The children stared at them for a couple of beats before gradually dispersing off to their houses.

"Your house, then?" September asked Jem.

He nodded. "Blake probably won't be in, but I can just leave him a note."

"And so the adventure continues."

The three of them arrived at the Adamson's garden gate. Blake was sitting on the front step, phone in hand, twisting it in funny angles. His shoulders were tense in a way that could only mean he was gaming. Seppy didn't think he'd noticed them until he spoke.

"There's some bacon on the grill. I think it'll be ready now."

"Why are you sat outside, then?" Jem asked.

"Locked out. Do you reckon George could zap it open? Seeing as he's superman and all," Blake quipped. He put his phone away and his eyes darted up and down the street.

"It's unlikely that he'd have two powers," September said. "He won't be around, anyway. He lives on the other side of town."

"What do you know?" Blake shot at her. He'd apparently forgotten that they were sort of friendly.

"As far as the FAYZ is concerned? More than you, I'd assume," she replied.

He shot her a dirty look and pointedly looked at his brother. "Do you have your key?"

"Yeah, just a minute." Jem put his hand in his pocket for his key and swore as he tossed it in his hands. "I left my phone in history."

"It won't be much use, now," September pointed out.

"Nah, I throw it around all the time." He unlocked the front door as Seppy tried to protest what she actually meant. The sound of the smoke alarm pierced their ears. "Well that's not good."

"Told you it was ready." Blake sauntered into the modern house

"No one likes a smart ass," Jem said to the back of his brother's head.

Seppy watched the boys banter and shyly followed them into the house with Lily still on her lead. She felt a pang of jealousy in her chest when she thought of her brother. It was only nine months ago, but the hurt was still raw in her heart. She wouldn't cry. She'd lasted this long unnoticed.

Jem was in the kitchen, wafting smoke away from the grill with a tea towel that matched the incredibly modern black, plum and silver kitchen perfectly. Then he picked up a pair of oven gloves and grabbed the tray to shove it straight in the sink.

"You match your towels to your kitchen?" Seppy blurted.

"Kitchen to the towels, actually. Only joking, mum did that, and the bathroom, too. She's kind of OCD like that," he replied. "Oh God, when am I going to see my parents again?"

September didn't have an answer for that. She took a stool at the island in the middle of the room and watched Jem clean the grill of blackened meat. Blake walked into the kitchen and sat on the island.

"Did the bacon survive, then?"

"It's a bit well done," Jem told him.

"Better than undercooked," Blake countered. He frowned, "No, wait- that's chicken isn't it?"

At the same time, Jem barked, "Are you kidding? This is charcoal!"

"Really? Shame. Maybe someone'll have a power for that. Like _Misfits_ or something. I wouldn't mind immortality, to be completely honest. That milk one was pretty rank, mind," Blake said, going off on a tangent like he often did during his lunchtime conversations with Seppy.

"I'd be happy with a B.S. radar," Jem said. He'd finished scrubbing the grill and was drying his hands on a black and purple tea towel. "Oh, wait, I do."

"There was a truth teller in the GONE books. He was funny, but annoying, not to mention insane. I hope he doesn't get killed off in the end," September said.

"Aaaand no one gives two," Jem snarked. "Do you know Michal? I swear I saw him doing something weird in PE a few weeks back."

"The Polish kid?" Blake asked.

"Is he the one that supposedly collapsed the box?" Seppy asked, intrigued.

"Yeah. We were doing a gymnastics block, and there was the five of us lined up to jump this box. I'd already been, and I saw it kind of... _expand_ when I got up. Then after Michal jumped, the whole thing collapsed on itself."

"This is some pretty weird crap going on," Blake said. "George, Michal, who knows who else?"

Jem gave Seppy a nervous glance. She wondered what he knew, and how.

"Yeah well," he said, "Let's try not to think about all that. We should be going to the school for all those kids."

"Why?" Blake asked.

"Because all the kids are there and there's no adults to stop them from killing themselves. Would you like to come, little brother?"

"Whatever."

The boys went to back a bag each, leaving Seppy in the kitchen with Lily. She picked an apple up from the fruit bowl and tossed it into the air. Lily watched intently.

"Sorry, Lily, it's not for you," she said as she caught it in her hand. She threw it again and aimed her hands at the red fruit. The apple fell to the black counter top. Seppy sighed. Why had she been able to freeze those DVDs in mid-air, but not a stupid apple?

"I can't find the key to the restaurant!" She heard Jem shout. Jem's parents owned the Chinese restaurant and take-away on the high street- the best in Hawick.

"Dad must've been there when he left," Blake yelled back. "It wasn't open tonight, anyway! No fire hazards there."

"I'll come back for it, anyway," Jem said as he walked into the kitchen carrying a black rucksack embellished with a logo Seppy only recognised as a rugby team, but not which. He'd changed out of his uniform and into a green flannel shirt, black t-shirt and jeans. He regarded Seppy and her apple. "Staring at fruit now? What kind of retarded diet is that?"

September crossed her arms in front of her body defensively, thinking that he was poking fun at her weight. "We really ought to be going."

"I think Blake's just about ready," he said.

The two of them waited for Blake and then left. On their way down the hill, they met kids going the same way and quickly, the large group from before came back together.

It was strange to see all the cars abandoned at the side of the road. Seppy spied a cat chase a bird into a bush and wondered if it would end up being eaten by starving kids or through a book. Many dark thoughts ran through her head as she walked.

When they finally reached the high school, Seppy and Lily jumped the low stone wall separating the small lawn from the main road and sprawled out on the grass to soak up the last of the afternoon sun. Lily lay down next to her. The other children climbed over and sat in their own little groups. Her eyes were closed so she could only hear Jem sit down next to her.

"Aren't you worried about mud?" He teased.

"Life's too short," she replied.

"Good point," he agreed. "So this is life, now?"

"Looks like it. Then again, if we go to sleep right now, we might wake up in history and Miss Bloom will be yelling at us for being rude and ignorant and all that."

"Ach, beats whatever it is we're doing now."


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry for the long wait between updates, this chapter did not want to be written and we had a lot of stuff going on over the weekend that took waay longer than I had originally expected to.**

**On another note, what am I doing wrong here? I mean, seriously, what am I doing wrong? I'm getting all these views to my story- over 300 last I checked- and never more than one or two reviews per chapter. It's just a bit frustrating, is all.**

**Also, I'm thinking of changing my username to Lydia Stranger or some variant of the spelling. Just a heads up.**

* * *

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**PHIL **AWOKE TO darkness.

His head was a throbbing ache and he was sitting with his hands tied behind his back. With some pulling and grabbling, he came to the conclusion that his restraint was just a school tie. He realised that his eyes were closed and tried to open them but found he'd also been blindfolded, presumably by a second tie.

"Tamsin?" He called weakly.

"Phil? Is that you?" Came the reply. Tamsin spoke with a slight lisp. "Uck," he spat.

"What the heck happened?" Phil asked.

"Cookie came at us all with bats," a third voice said.

"Why?"

"God knows," said a fourth.

"All yous shut the hell up or I scar you!" Someone else snapped. Phil didn't recognise the voice, but from the accent it was probably Michal. Phil hoped he was wrong about that. "Drive."

He heard an engine roar to life and the floor lurched sideways, causing him to lose his balance and slump into someone, he didn't know who. Phil kept quiet in fear and blamed Tamsin for his troubles. After all, it was his fault that they had to go and play hero.

"Where are we going?" One of the junior kids asked.

"_You_ don't ask the questions," Michal barked. Phil no longer held any doubt that it was Michal. "We ask questions."

"Aa'isha, do your thing," he heard Hawick High's resident thug Cookie instruct.

There was a pause where not much happened apart from the occasional bump than rocked the floor and made Phil feel travel sick. He remembered about the powers and wondered if Aa'isha was about to make him spontaneously combust. Or maybe choke him to death with the cheese pizza he ate for lunch.

"They all look normal," Aa'isha said.

Normal?

"Sure?" Michal asked

"No swirly water crap or bubbles or anything," she said.

"Okay, seems legit," Cookie concluded. "Keep them tied, though. They could still try something."

"Where are we going?" A voice demanded. Phil was shocked to know it was his when inside he felt weak and scared.

"That would be telling," Michal sneered.

They continued to drive. It felt like an hour but it was probably no more than ten minutes- Phil had lost sense of time. He wondered how long he'd been unconscious for. It had probably been two or three hours since the adults disappeared, and already he'd stolen a fire engine and then been kidnapped by Cookie and his gang. He thought about his nephew, and hoped that Aiden would be okay until he could get to his sister's flat, or at least, someone might find him.

The floor was still and Phil's nausea eased. There was the sound of a sliding door being opened and some light peeked from around his blindfold.

"Get 'em out," Cookie ordered.

Phil was ushered up onto his feet roughly and shoved forward until he lost his footing and fell out of the van and on to what he thought was the pavement. He was poked and prodded up a flight of stairs and then down another. The air turned cold and damp. Not being able to see made Phil panic more than just slightly. Wherever he was, he was more than likely trapped.

"Sit down on the ground!" Cookie yelled.

He gently lowered himself down to the floor obediently. He heard the telltale rustling of clothing that said the others were doing as they were told.

"Let us go," one of the juniors pleaded.

"Yeah, it was them two who got us here!"

"Shut it," Michal said.

Once again Phil wished that the adults hadn't disappeared. If they hadn't, none of this would have happened. He could be in Maths right now. The equation of a straight line had to be better than this.

"Do you actually have a plan or are you just pissing about until you think of one?" Aa'isha asked.

"I'm getting to it," Cookie insisted before addressing the prisoners. "Okay, what were you all doing back there?"

"We were going to put out the fire," Tamsin calmly informed.

"And who asked you to do that?"

"No one..."

"So you thought, 'hey, look! A burning house. Let's all go to the fire station and steal a truck to play hero.'"

"Yeah?" Tamsin replied. His worry turned it into a question.

"Well that's all well and good, Tamsin, but I think in your heroism, you overlooked one tiny little detail."

A beat. No one said anything. No one knew what to say.

Then, "This is our town, Tamsin. You wait for our orders, our clearance."

"Since when?" Phil asked.

"Ever since Michal discovered his power, Philip," a new voice said. Midori Sato. "I'm sure you know all about what he can do. Of course, it's all over the school."

"Please untie my hands so I can punch you all," Tamsin asked after recollecting himself.

"Ooh, hard man," Midori taunted. There was the sound of something metal colliding with flesh. Tamsin grunted in pain. "Michal's been looking for a human target to see how far his power will go. Wouldn't it be fun to see you splat against the wall?"

"Midori, that's enough," Aa'isha said. Phil wondered if that image had left her as sick as it had he.

"Just playing, Aa'isha. I solemnly swear never to touch so much as a hair on their heads unless their skulls prove too thick to feel it." Her words were rushed; weak jokes made up on the spot to maintain the tough exterior she clung to. Phil knew she'd only started hanging around with Cookie's gang when her father died.

"Back to the topic at hand," Cookie began, cutting off the two girls. "This is our town, so if you try to piss around like that again, you'll know about it."

Phil realised what this was: a warning. Nothing more. "Is that it?"

Cookie snorted. "Consider this a warning. If we see you around here again, we can guarantee we'll smash your brains in. You have half an hour to get the hell out of here. You can untie them all now, Midori."

"Fine then," she muttered. Phil felt her fiddling with the tie around his wrists and then his hands were free. He yanked his blindfold off over his head and jumped to his feet. Tamsin was also getting to his feet, refusing Aa'isha's help to remove his blindfold. They were in a dark cellar storing an assortment of spare parts, tools, empty cardboard boxes and a pool table

He counted the hostages. Five- himself, Tamsin and the three juniors. He could've sworn that there were six of them at the fire.

Michal and Aa'isha pushed the group out of the cellar and up the stairs and then out of the front door of someone's house with Midori fast on their tails. Phil stumbled into Tamsin as he was thrust down the step. Tamsin caught him but shoved him out of the way quickly.

"Half an hour to get off the estate," Midori warned. She closed the front door after Aa'isha and Michal.

"Douche bag," one of the juniors snapped at Phil, punching him in the arm. He walked away with the other juniors.

Tamsin looked at him, waiting for him to say they were going.

"Don't talk to me," Phil said. The two of them walked to his sister's house.

* * *

Jack pulled up the car in front on the high school's science department near the bus stop. The odd collection of mismatched buildings was oddly empty for a school day, just like the rest of town now that the adults had gone. Empty, apart from a girl standing at the shelter by herself. He caught her eye and waved her over.

She was pale with a purple scarf tied over her head to cover her hair loss. Her uniform was unusually smart with the knot in her tie actually at her neck rather than somewhere toward her midriff like most other girls. Either she was some kind of hipster or terrified of breaking the rules.

He rolled the window down to talk to her.

"Where did you come from?" She asked.

"Uh, I was on my way back from Galashiels when my mum went. What are you doing here?"

"I live in Newcastleton. Everyone else on the bus has friends in town except from... Um, I don't really have any way to get back home so I'm kinda stuck here."

"You should drive. You might crash into at tree or something, but you'll be out of the crazy going on here."

"Crazy?"

Jack thought about it, but decided that he didn't want to tell her that he had kept driving on when he had seen his friend and Tamsin beaten down by Cookie and his gang. Or the two primary school kids who'd walked out of Sainsbury's pushing a trolley full of sweets._ Like you do_, he'd thought to himself.

"It's all happening up at Burnfoot," he said about the estate.

"Well, it's not like I was planning to go there anyway," she replied. "I'm Lee, by the way."

"Jack," he introduced himself.

"Yeah, I know who you are," she said in a slightly scornful way. "Who are the kids in the back?"

"I rescued them."

Lee shot him a dubious look and turned to watch the bend at the bottom of the road. A grey car appeared, coming towards them. At the same time, a sizable crowd of kids walked out from behind some houses and crossed the road. Jack recognised Jem and opened the door of his car.

Jem and a girl jumped the stone wall in front of the school with the girl's dog. All the kids followed them. Jack climbed out and began walking over to them with Lee.

"Jack!" Lucy screamed after him.

He remembered the kids in the car and went back to let them out. Thomas and Lucy raced off to chase each other on the grass where the other kids were. The baby, Emma, was left with him. He picked her out of the car seat and held her awkwardly at arms' length.

"Who'd have thought that Jack Reid would be the one left holding the baby?" Lee joked. She stayed close to him. "Do you want me to hold her?"

He shrugged. "If it's okay with you." Jack passed Emma into Lee's arms. "So what do you know about this?" He gestured to the air around him.

"What? Babies? Not too much, if I'm being honest with you, but it can't be that hard."

"No, I mean this, the adults disappearing."

"Don't know much about that, either," she replied. Lee gave him a knowing look, "Rebecca Glass knows, apparently."

Jack snorted. "Like I've always said; she's a poof."

"Well, she might really be the poof who knows what's going on. I think that's her getting out of the car over there."

"Should we talk to her?"

"Let's go, Batman!" She said, cradling Emma close and marching on. Jack followed her, shaking his head.


	6. Outside

**OUTSIDE**

**THE **ANOMOLY WAS a strange sight, looking at it from the outside. It was still the same pearly grey, still reflective enough to trick the eye into thinking there was something on the other side, still hurt to the touch, but was now convex.

It still towered above them, twenty miles across at its widest, ten miles tall, ten miles deep, but keeping them out rather than in now. The FAYZ wall.

The age of technology was too advanced to keep an event such as this under wraps. There was a hundred and one ways the news was spreading.

Countless walkers and drivers had video evidence of the wall just appearing. One minute, everything was normal, the next, some freaky barrier had appeared inches from your nose and hundreds of strangers appeared around you, some sitting, some standing, some lying down, some still walking until they realised were they were.

Countless phone calls and Tweets and Facebook updates informing the rest of the world about the tragedy unfolding. It was impossible to censor out every hashtag, disconnect every phone call, and remove the memes popping up over the Internet.

Countless reporters and cameras racing to get the best shot, the best story. The two of them had done their best to avoid them so far, but it wouldn't be long until they caught wind of the survivors whose youngest daughter was now trapped.

And nearly one hundred people from a small town in California rushing to tell their stories because they knew that in a time of chaos, who was going to tell them not to? Stories of hardship and starvation, stories of heroes and villains, the survivors and the fallen, stories of a world without rules or adults.

The secret was out.


	7. Chapter 6

**Err, bit of a filler I guess. It's a day later than I hoped to upload it, but I had no Internet access yesterday. Anyway, I'm hoping to get some FanFics with the GONE characters up to accompany The FAYZ II but I'm trying to time them right.**

**Well, enjoy and don't forget to review!**

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX**

"**YOU **KNOW, WHEN I said for you to look after the kids, I kinda thought you'd look after the kids," Caroline goaded at Jem and Seppy. The two of them were sitting on the grass with Seppy's infuriatingly hyper dog and giving her looks of disbelief.

Seppy rolled her eyes but didn't reply.

Jem glared at her. "What, you expected us to magically go around town and round up every single kid? Then take them where, exactly?"

"I expected you to come up with some kind of system!"

"Then why didn't you just say that?" September asked. "All you did was say, 'You like kids, do something about them.' Actually, you didn't even say that."

"Look, you're both smart people," Caroline argued. She hated arguments with her best friend, but this had nothing to do with who had the best taste in music, or what the most ridiculous part of the last Twilight film was- Alice's vision, obviously- but they were living in the FAYZ now. You couldn't just palm off responsibility because no one had told you to do something.

"What crawled up your arse and died, Caroline?" Jem asked. At least, she thought it was Jem until she realised the voice came from behind her. She turned around.

"Jack," Caroline greeted the speaker.

"Caroline," he replied. He was followed by a quiet girl with a pretty scarf tied around her head. "Do you know what happened to the adults?"

"They're gone, man," Jem told him. "I was looking right at Miss Bloom when she... 'Poofed.'"

"That's what Phil said when I asked him," Jack replied.

"What's the supply like, now?" Caroline asked him, hoping that at least someone had some common sense.

"Supply? What?"

"I asked him and Tamsin to see what the food supply looked like," she said.

"Last I saw them Cookie was beating them down outside a burning house."

"Why?" Rebecca asked. She'd been fairly quiet until then, watching over Connor and watching smugly as Seppy and Caroline argue. But then, she was a Popular, and that's what Populars did. They stuck their noses in everyone else's business.

Jack shrugged dramatically. "I don't have a fu- clue. I don't know what's going on, okay. You know, first I'm in the car with my mum, next thing, she's gone and there's this huge lorry coming my way. Phil said you know what's happened."

"Me?" Rebecca asked. "I know that GONE happened. Everyone over the age of fifteen is out, we're trapped and don't even get me started on the mutant powers."

Caroline could have slapped her right there. Maybe drown her. No, it hadn't gone that far. Yet.

"Thanks for that, Rebecca, but we'll chose to trust the ones who actually know what an elbow is," Jem waved her off.

"I know what one is now!" Rebecca said, pointing at her forearm.

Jem shook his head. "Try again."

She clenched her jaw.

Caroline sighed. "Well, at least we're here in one piece. Where are all these kids going to stay?"

September exchanged a look with Jem. "We though t here. It's central enough that people will get the message that this is where you can take lost kids and there's plenty for them to do."

"Plus, how many times do you get to say you had a sleepover at the school with a bunch of pretty girls?" Jack teased Jem. Jem's cheeks went a dark red.

"Okay, how?" Caroline asked, trying to be practical.

"'_Christie's furnishing centre! Find furniture fast!'_" Sang Jem. He grinned idiotically. "I'm sure there's plenty of food in the canteen on the Home Ec department."

"Unless you can think of a better place?" Seppy dared Caroline. The blonde had no answer for her friend. There was nowhere else big enough or central enough for all those kids.

A little boy in his green school jumper approached the group. "Mummy would have tea now. I'm hungry!"

"Me too!" Other kids whined.

Caroline's own stomach was rumbling. "If we split up, some of us can go to Sainsbury's or Iceland and get ready meals and formula."

"I'll go," the quiet girl with the scarf volunteered.

"Same," Jack said.

"I'll come with you," Jem said as he stood up.

"And now we have our brave team of intrepid explorers," Jack announced theatrically.

"Get one trolley of food, one of nappies, formula and first-aid supplies and another of bed sheets," Seppy said. "Oh, and pick up some dry dog food, too."

Jem gave her a thumbs-up and headed off with Jack and the girl with the scarf.

"While they're gone, we can... do something here," Caroline began. "Um, now I don't know what to do."

Seppy smirked. "I did wonder how long you'd manage to be all cool, calm and collected."

"I'm still mad at you," Caroline said.

"I won't pretend to understand why but, Jack said that Phil was getting beat up and I'm not surprised that Cookie had something to do with it. I think that's a little bit more important."

Rebecca cleared her throat, "September kinda has a point, like. Cookie's like Orc, but smarter. Smarter than me anyway."

"And he has Michal," Seppy added. "There's not a lot of people who aren't scared of Michal."

Caroline shrugged. "He doesn't scare me just because something broke in PE. It doesn't matter. Let Cookie scare people. It'll wear off and he'll go off sulking. Besides, we have other responsibilities, right? Let's get inside."

The three girls and Blake, who'd been busy distracting some five year olds with a football when the others had been talking, rounded up all the kids and got them inside the school and to the main hall. Chairs had been set out in rows for an assembly. The projector was on standby. Seppy switched it off.

Blake and Rebecca stacked the chairs up and pushed them noisily out into the English corridor where they were kept nestled in an out-of-the-way corner.

Seppy and Caroline went looking for the supposed overnight emergency supplies. They tried the nurses' office and medical room, then the pupil office and the main office, then the whole PE department before re-tracing their steps and trying guidance. Caroline checked out some dystopia novels from the shelf as September read through numerous leaflets and posters going through emergency situations step by step.

"Ha ha!" Seppy cried and triumphantly waved around some papers about getting snowed in. "It's all kept in the main staffroom."

Caroline dropped the book she was holding- Uglies- and ran across the hall to the main staff room. She heard Seppy follow her as the swung open the heavy double-doors and rounded a counter to access a small kitchenette. She opened one of the biggest cupboards and found several shelves packed full with navy sleeping bags.

"How many do you think are there?" Caroline asked.

"More than enough, I think," Seppy said.

While the two girls carried the sleeping bags down to the main hall, across the river, Jack, Jem and Lee were in the Supermarket gathering supplies.

"Do you think you've put enough macaroni in there?" Jack teased Jem, nodding at the large trolley that was mostly full of the cheesy pasta cat vomit as far as Jack could see.

"I still can't believe how empty it is," Lee remarked.

Jack left his trolley next to Jem's so he could try and see if anyone was around. It was just the three of them, it seemed. "Hello!" He yelled with his hands cupped around his mouth. There was no reply. He turned around, grinning. "Do you ever wonder if you can race shopping trolleys?"

Lee frowned. "No, because it's stupid?"

"Or no, because the adults would ban us," Jack replied. He ran back and tried to climb into the metal basket. It slipped away from him and as he fell to the lino flooring, he was forced to let it go or it would have toppled on him. "Well that failed."

"You maybe want to do what we've been asked to?" Jem asked.

"Aw do you want to get back to the girlies? Scared your brother has them all to himself?" Jack teased. He knew he'd struck a nerve when Jem turned furiously red, but he continued. "Yeah, Rebecca's pretty hot. She's an idiot, but she's hot."

"Yes," Jem said sarcastically. "I'm hopelessly in love with Rebecca Glass."

"As well as racing shopping trolleys, I've also always wanted to know what black Asian babies looked like."

"Oh for the love of all that's good," Jem groaned. "You're my best friend man, but you can go too far, sometimes."

Jack didn't think that he'd gone too far. He thought it was Jem's fault for being so touchy and defensive. It didn't matter, anyway. He was bored, anxious, confused and a little scared. Today should not have been possible, it shouldn't. Not with the adults gone and Cookie free to terrorise kids.

"Someone want to push me?"

Lee had somehow climbed into her mostly empty trolley without him noticing. She sat on top of a bag of Baker's beef chunks with her ankles resting on the rim of the trolley. Jack noticed that she was wearing skinny jeans even though her tie was worn properly and wondered how she'd managed to get around the rules. Then he wondered why he cared.

He shook himself out of his thoughts and grabbed onto the handle of Lee's trolley, spun her around and pushed it down the middle of the supermarket. Jack scaled the side of the open fridge and climbed into his trolley, succeeding this time. His back was shielded from the hard rim by a couple of cushions. "C'mon and push me, Jem."

Jem was a lot bigger and stronger than Jack, so when he pushed the trolley, Jack went flying down the aisle. He was hardly going at breakneck speeds, but he was unable to avoid colliding with the wines and spirits at the far end of the shop. Bottles rattled on their shelves. Two fell off but none smashed.

Lee was there, marooned in her trolley, looking just as tempted a Jack felt.

No, he told himself, that's the last thing you want to do when kids are around.

"Hold onto the trolley so I don't fall," he asked Lee. She pulled herself along the shelves and placed her hands on Jack's trolley. Jack climbed out awkwardly and helped Lee out of hers. The two of them pushed their trolleys back to Jem.

"You want a go?" Jack smirked at his friend.

Jem returned his smirk with a raised eyebrow. "I'm fourteen, not four."

"You're boring," Jack muttered, but his and Lee's feet stayed firmly on the ground while they collected everything that they would need at the school.

In Lee's trolley they had two tins of formula, a variety of baby food, two large bottles of Robinson's dilute squash, four packets of plasters, a packet of gauze pads, all the toothbrushes on the shop floor, kids' toothpaste, Calpol, five packets of nappies for various ages, three bottles of antibacterial hand wash, and a CBBies DVD.

Jem pushed a smaller trolley of microwave meals, chocolate biscuits, cookies from the bakery section, some ice cream and frozen chips. There was plenty of food in the Home Economics department if they wanted to cook from scratch.

Jack was tasked with pushing the largest trolley stuffed with all the cushions, pillows, blankets and linen they could find. It wasn't heavy until Jem had added kiddies' cutlery and the dog food that would no longer fit on Lee's trolley.

They pushed their loads back to the school through the eerily empty car park between the river and the supermarket they'd just raided. Lee's school bus was there, but the driver was long since gone and the remaining passengers scattered. As they rounded the science department, Jack wondered how it would look to the adults if they suddenly came back.

The main door was open, and they wheeled in their goods. Jack decided that he didn't want to do anymore walking, but then Rebecca and September appeared shuffling a navy crash mat out of the PE department into the hall.

"Great, you're back," September said. "Now you can help us move the mats and organise some beds."

The blond boy slumped into the wall with a groan.


End file.
